The Shadow and the Star (55 page)

"You should not swear," she said in a very small voice.

"I'm sorry." He leaned his hand on the door frame.

Then he lifted his face to the mountains. "So goddamned sorry," he said through his teeth.

When he looked at her again, she was standing straight. She had picked up her hat. She took two steps, to the middle of the empty room.

"It is my decision?"

He could hear the tears behind her shaky words. Tears. He had a burn in his throat and chest that seemed to suffocate him. "Certainly," he said in a tight voice.

"Then I wish to stay here," she said. "And live in this house. And keep up a conventional appearance."

When you bow, Dojun had taught him, you must not
bow casually, as if it were some aimless gesture. The beauty of it must be complete, the motion whole: the two hands, palms open, placed together smoothly and slowly, fingertips raised to the proper zenith. The whole body bending from the waist, powerfully: form and force—mind composed, back straight, weight even and firm on the ground—then rise with hands still together and stand naturally.

In this way, Dojun said, you show respect. For your master, for your opponent, for life.

In the light from a single oil lamp in his office, at three a.m., Samuel bowed to Dojun. He prevented his shadow from falling on the window shade. The encounter was unusual in its place and timing—that Dojun would seek him out, set a meeting on Samuel's territory, was unprecedented.

Dojun came dressed in shabby clothes, as any plantation laborer might dress, carrying nothing that was visible to an untrained glance. He returned Samuel's bow with a slight one, and said, in Japanese, "You've been with a woman."

Thus was Samuel's shower, his scrubbing of himself, rendered futile.

"I'm married," he said.

There was a deep silence, with only the obscure, endless sound of the surf far off over the reef beyond the harbor. Samuel couldn't even hold Dojun's dark gaze, but looked at the barren shadows in the corner beyond his desk.

"Ah. The Lady Catherine would have you?"

Of course. Of course, Dojun would know what he'd planned for years, though never once had Samuel spoken of it. It was the faint sense of disapproving surprise in Dojun, of an invisible eyebrow raised at the idea that Kai would accept his proposal, that brought blood to Samuel's face.

"I never asked Kai." He felt hideously exposed, unable to keep his mind free enough, attentive enough, to cope with an attack should Dojun launch one. "I married no one of importance. She's English." He moved to change the atmosphere, nodding toward the fragrant pot on his stove. "I've warmed
sake
for you. It's nothing special, but please accept it anyway."

He spoke of it that way, politely, even though it was the best
tokubetsuna
grade available, and both he and Dojun knew it.

"
Itadakimasu."
Dojun received the drink as Samuel poured it for him from its little ceramic carafe. They sat together on the floor, sipping from the miniature wooden boxes that he'd prepared by placing salt on the lips.

"You know that there are questions asked about you," Dojun said.

"Yes." Samuel had already heard that report. For several weeks, apparently, there had been particular inquiries into who and what he was in both Honolulu and San Francisco. The source was vague, not traceable beyond talk in Chinatown so far. "I don't know who."

"
Nihonjin desu, "
Dojun said, looking at him over the fumes rising from his drink.

Japanese. Japanese investigating him. Samuel thought instantly of the sword mounting sealed beneath his stove.

"Why are they asking, Samua-san?" There was a coolness in Dojun's voice. Samuel knew his own rapid connection had been detected—Dojun was that good, that he might read Samuel's mind if he allowed it. Too late to say that he had no idea why Japanese might be interested in him. Too late to appear as if he had nothing to hide.

He stood up, brought the tiny carafe to Dojun and offered it, bowing deeply again. After Dojun had held up his cup to be refilled, Samuel spoke in English. "With my apologies, Dojun-san. It's my problem."

Dojun regarded him. He sipped slowly at his
sake
. "You're too thoughtful. I'm an old man, and you think to indulge me. But we'll share this problem,
ne
?" He kept to his own language in spite of Samuel's switch, indicating many things—his position, that he would direct the conversation, that what he wished to speak of was subtle and not to be misunderstood. "Tell me why these men ask about you."

"I stole something." Samuel kept his back straight as he sat cross-legged. "From the Japanese embassy in London. Perhaps they're looking for it."

Dojun gazed at him. Unfathomable.

"I'll see that they get it back," Samuel added.

Dojun's face had changed indefinably. His eyes were black and potent. "What do you have, little
baka
?"

Samuel did not allow his body to stiffen at being called a fool. "A
kazaritachi. "

Dojun made a sound like a controlled tempest. Not anger, but a sound of pure energy. He stared at Samuel. "Where is it?"

There was no need to tell him in words. Samuel had only to think it, and Dojun looked directly at the place where Samuel's careful seal of horsehair lay unbroken over his secret cache beneath the stove.

"You might have done worse." Dojun shook his head, smiling strangely. "You don't know what you're dealing with."

Samuel waited. He would get no explanation if he asked. Or if he didn't. Only if Dojun chose to give him one.

"Tell me the names of the five great swords," Dojun demanded.

"The Juzu-maru," Samuel said. "Dojigiri, the Doji-Cutter. Mikazuki, the Sickle Moon. O-Tenta, Mitsuyo's Masterpiece. Ichigo Hitofuri, called Once in a Lifetime."

"Five is the highest number, according to tradition. It's written in the
Meibutsucho
that there is another sword with a name among the five."

"There cannot be another. There are five names, and five blades."

"But you read it, didn't you? That among the
meito
, there are the five great swords, and another sword among the five?"

"I read that. I never understood it. I'm accustomed to that when I try to decipher Japanese writing."

Dojun smiled a little. "Well, it's only a foolish puzzle anyway. The monks might make something philosophical of it, but the truth is that there's a sixth great sword, and the appraisers who compiled the
Meibutsucho
were just afraid to write down its name."

He picked up the pitcher of
sake
, holding it over Samuel's wooden
masu
. He poured gracefully, and set the carafe down again.

"Better," he said, "if they'd just left it out entirely, instead of telling nothing to someone who doesn't know, and hiding nothing from someone who does."

Samuel sipped his warmed wine.

Dojun watched him. A trace of humor still lingered at his mouth. "Patience!" he said. "You ask too many questions."

Samuel waited. The old sense of focused calm was flowing back as he listened, not to Dojun's words as much as to his certainty. Samuel felt his own significance in that certainty, knew that nothing Dojun told him was without purpose.

"
Gokuakuma
. That would be the name of this sword, if it existed. The Highest Demon. Someone told me they went to the Christian school and heard about the angel who became the devil. That is the spirit of this sword."

"If it existed."

"The blade is two
shaku
and five
sun
in length. Six inches under an American yard. It's a wide blade, to balance the length, with grooves on each side at the back of the curve. Below the tang, it's engraved with the demon called the
tengu
, long claws, wings, and a savage beak. The tang isn't signed. It's only marked with those characters—
Goku, aku, ma
. There is not a sword-maker in all history who went by such a name."

Samuel recognized the inventory of attributes that typified the descriptions from the
Meibutsucho
, the catalog of the famous swords of Japan. It only needed a history of ownership and daring deeds to be complete, though there was no such record, no such sword, described in what he'd read. "Is it lost?"

"No. It is not lost. It is… potential."

In the lamplight, Dojun's face looked timeless, no older, no younger than what he had always seemed to Samuel. Only his black hair was different, cut years ago to the short Western manner. While everyone and everything else changed around him, Dojun remained.

He held up his hand, closing it into a fist. "Without a hilt, a good blade is merely dangerous. You cut your fingers if you aren't careful when you handle it. Given luck, you might kill someone with an unmounted blade. You might just as easily kill yourself. But mounted, with a hilt made for a man's hand, a guard to protect him and a sheath to be carried—potential becomes its own truth. The spirit in the blade is now the spirit in the man."

Samuel thought of the ceremonial sword he'd stolen, the dull iron stem within the gorgeous mounting. He began to sense what was coming.

"Gokuakuma is a beautiful thing, and terrible. It's older than anyone knows. The first certain record is from seven hundred years ago, when a sword with a golden hilt appeared in the hands of Minamoto Yoritomo as he swept away the Taira clan from the capital and destroyed the boy emperor. But to be in power is not enough—the Gokuakuma demands more. Yoritomo rid himself of his own brother and slaughtered those in his family who hindered him. At his death, his wife's family, the Ho-jo, came to own the sword—and the demon in it possessed them. They killed Yoritomo's heirs, assassinated the clan down to the last main line, and took control. Still the danger of the blade was not recognized, only the power. A masterless samurai made a plan to obtain it, stealing the blade and leaving another in the mounting. This
ronin
, whose infamous name is erased from history, at first appeared successful, gathering other
ronin
to follow him, and coaxing the Ho-jo vassals to his will, but when he tried to use it in combat, the blade failed him, flying from the hilt he'd forced on it, causing him to fall from his horse and impale himself."

Dojun stopped. Samuel watched him steadily.

"The Gokuakuma fits only one mount: one hilt and one scabbard—only the real blade will seat true in the golden hilt." Dojun's voice took on a dreamlike, chanting quality. "It was Ashikaga Takauji who reunited the true mount with the blade, attacked the Ho-jo, and forced them to cut their bellies in
seppuku
. Sixty years of war ensued, until the grandson of Takauji came into possession of the Gokuakuma and its strength. But he was wise, and separated the blade from the hilt again. He placed the mount in his Golden Pavilion, where it could be enjoyed for the beauty of the craftsmanship, and the blade in the care of monks in the mountains of Iga. While it lasted, the country enjoyed peace, the golden age of the Ashikaga, but the Gokuakuma has its own pattern. The sword calls out to be made whole, and it calls most strongly to the ones who are… 'not-quite'—those who are in great power but not at the peak. The brother of the shogun Yoshimasa burned down the monastery to obtain the blade, reunited it with the mount, and initiated civil war. For centuries the sword passed from one hand to another, amid wars and chaos, until Nobunaga obtained it, entering then into the hands of a man of military genius.